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Pricing - The Firebolt

For a fic I'm writing I need some information on finances. I'm considering having somebody buy a Firebolt but I'm not sure if they would be willing to spend 'too much' money. Unfortunately JKR never specifies a price for the Firebolt so it's hard to know how much that actually cost. If you were to work at the official (if a little doubtful) estimate of 5 pounds to 1 galleon how much would a Firebolt be?

Let us assume that brooms are somewhat analogous to Muggle bicycles. A simple, uninspiring bicycle with only one gear ratio would usually cost somewhere around £50-60. A simple bicycle like this could be parallel to a cheap broom like a Shooting Star, so if you go with the 5-1 exchange rate, a Shooting Star could cost around ten to twelve Galleons.

On the other side of the spectrum, fancy hand-made racing bicycles like those used in the Tour de France can cost £2000 and higher. If we go with this bicycle/broomstick analogy, a Firebolt would cost at least four hundred Galleons.

Now, considering that the Triwizard Tournament prize money was a thousand Galleons, which was enough to start the Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes company, spending almost half of that amount on one broomstick is quite excessive.

I've always imagined that about 100-200 Galleons would be about the price of a high-end broom. That way, it's just out of reach of the average wizard. I could see the Firebolt possibly being more than that, just because in PoA, the workers at Quality Quidditch would only give price on request.

It's possibly a jaw-dropping amount, since not even Malfoy's dad upgraded his son's broom when the Firebolts came on the market.

I instinctively thought about 400 Galleons, too. Just when you look at what a wand, a quill, the omniocculars, a ride on the Knight Bus, ... costs - you get an overall feel for the average cost of everyday wizarding life. And then you can go "how much money wouldn't I want to spend?". And there you have the Firebolt

Also, the Weasleys spent "most of" 700 Galleons on a vacation in Egypt which lasted for up to a month or so. They probably didn't stay in a five-* hotel though.

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